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A pair of court rulings in the last month that reopen SUV rollover cases against Ford Motor Company spell serious legal problems for the automaker. Citing these and earlier court rulings, the Environmental Working Group has petitioned the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an unprecedented criminal probe of Ford’s pattern and practice of willfully concealing safety-related defect data from courts, federal regulators and consumers.

“With this ruling, Ford is sailing into the perfect legal storm of consequences for lying in court and bribing a witness. For that matter, who’s going to believe them now when they tell consumers they won’t give us higher mileage SUVs because they’re too worried about customer safety?” said EWG General Counsel Heather White.